Identify the basic meaning of Tennyson's "Ulysses."

Tennyson
felt that an essential part of the human predicament is quality of endurance.  He believed
that the need for going forward, and braving the struggle of life" is a critical part of
human identity. This construction underscores Tennyson's view ofin the poem.  

The poem centers on an exploration of the Greek warrior after his return to Ithaca.
 Making the transition from the life of war and challenge to the civilian life is shown to be a
difficult reality.  Tennyson's Greek hero challenges the idea of the "idle king."  
This vision is one who "cannot rest from travel."  From this , Odysseus is shown to
eagerly anticipate the uncertainty of voyage, repudiating the life of staying at home in a
domesticated fashion.  "Always roaming with a hungry heart," Tennyson's poem explores
how human beings must embrace freedom and the sojourn at all costs.  Even when there might not
be a guarantee of success, the spirit of vitality that defines the human spirit is illuminated
throughout the poem and within Tennyson's construction of Ulysses.  The search for truth is
something that cannot be removed, even through the domestic life.  While he has come home, some
part of his voyage has been imprinted on his own being and cannot be denied:

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and
forever when I move.

The desire to explore "that
untravell'd world whose margin fades" is of primary importance to Tennyson.  To explore a
world in which one might be able to brush past the greats like Achilles is what makes human
existence so meaningful. Ulysses understands that his responsibilities have been met, as
Telemachus will look out for Ithaca and that Penelope will be secure.  With these addressed,
Tennyson's Ulysses speaks to a larger condition.  It is one in which human beings have only the
spirit of freedom and endurance within them:

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that
strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we
are;

While individuals might be battered
and ravaged by consciousness, the spirit that enables them to embrace activity and the vitality
for life is of vital importance.  The call of "to strive, to seek to find, and not to
yield" not only close the poem, but they speak to a vision that drives the poem and
provides purpose to the definitions of human identity.

 

This becomes the primary focus of the poem.  It is a poem that asserts the condition
of existence.  Tennyson wrote the poem as a direct statement of how human beings can address the
realities of pain and suffering, as well as the unconquerable forces of death.  Being able to
find a way to cope with such overwhelming forces becomes what the poem is all about.  It speaks
to the spirit of the human being that finds a resolute commitment to voyage and exist, even when
so much might be taken away from the individual.  Tennyson sought to convey "the sense of
loss and that all had gone by, but that still life must be fought out to the end."  This
resiliency is a significant part of the poem in how it speaks to the human
condition. href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(poem)">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(poem)